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Nightwing
*Richard John "Dick" Grayson is a fictional character, a superhero that appears in comic books published +-by DC Comics. Created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger and illustrator Jerry Robinson, he first appeared in'' Detetective Comics'' #38 in April 1940. The youngest in a family of acrobats known as the "Flying Graysons", Dick watches a mafia boss kill his parents in order to extort money from the circus that employed them.Bruce Wayne, secretly the superhero Batman, takes him in as his legal ward, in some cases as his adopted son, and eventually as his crime-fighting partner, Robin. He is written out by many authors as the first son of Batman as well as his prodigal son. Many, including OMAC, state that he is the one that Batman cares about the most. Throughout Dick's adolescence, Batman and Robin are inseparable. However, as Dick grows older and spends more time as the leader of the Teen Titans, he retires as Robin and takes on his own superhero identity as Nightwing to assert his independence (others would fill in as Robin). His Nightwing persona was created by writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Perez, and first appeared in Tales of the Teen Titans #44 (July 1984). As Nightwing, Dick leads the Teen Titans and later the Outsiders. Following the events of the Zero Hour miniseries, he temporarily replaces Bruce Wayne as Batman, beginning in Robin#0 (October 1994) and extending throughout the Batman:Prodigal storyline. In an eponymous series, launched in 1996 and continuing until 2009, he becomes the protector of Bludhaven, gotham's economically troubled neighboring city. Following the destruction of Blüdhaven, at the command of Deathstroke, Nightwing relocates to New york. Following "Batman:Kightfall", Dick Grayson takes up the mantle of Batman while Bruce was recovering from a broken back as he considers Dick his prodigal son. After the events of "Batman:R.I.P" and Final Crisis, Dick moves operations to Gotham to protect the city following Bruce's apparent death. Despite Bruce's will instructing him not to, the chaos in Gotham following Bruce's disappearance prompts Dick to take up his mentor's identity once again as Batman. With Bruce's return, Dick once again picked up his previous identity as Nightwing. As Robin, Dick Grayson has appeared in several other media adaptations of Batman, including the 1943 and 1949 fifteen chapter Batman serials in which he was played by Douglas Croft and John Duncan, respectively, and the 1966–1968 live action Batman television series as well as its motion picture, where he was portrayed by Burt Ward. In the 1995 film Bataman Forever and its 1997 sequel Batman & Robin, he was played by Chris O'Donnel. In the 1990s' Batman:the Animated series and The New Batman Adventures, he was voiced by Loren Lester. The latter series was the first adaptation to portray Grayson's evolution into Nightwing. In May 2011, IGN ranked Grayson #11 on their list of the "Top 100 Super Heroes of All Time". Robin, The Boy Wonder The character was first introduced in Dective Comics #38 (1940) by Batman creators Bill Finger and Bob Kane. Robin's debut was an effort to make Batman a lighter, more sympathetic character. DC Comics also thought a teenaged superhero would appeal to young readers, being an effective audience surrogate. The name "Robin, The Boy Wonder" and the medieval look of the original costume are inspired by the legendary hero Red Hood, as well as the red-breasted American Robin, which parallels the "winged" motif of Batman. Dick Grayson was born on the first day of spring, son of John and Mary Grayson, a young aerialist couple. In his first appearance, Dick is a circus acrobat, and, with his parents, one of the "Flying Graysons". While preparing for a performance, Dick overhears two gangsters attempting to extort protection money from the circus owner. The owner refuses, so the gangsters sabotage the trapeze wires with acid. During the next performance, the trapeze from which Dick's parents are swinging snaps, sending them to their deaths. Before he can go to the police, Batman appears to him and warns him that the two gangsters work for Tony Zucco, a very powerful crime boss, and that revealing his knowledge could lead to his death. When Batman recounts the murder of his own parents, Dick asks to become his aide. After extensive training, Dick becomes Robin. They start by disrupting Zucco's gambling and extortion rackets. They then successfully bait the riled Zucco into visiting a construction site, where they capture him. Robin's origin has a thematic connection to Batman's in that both see their parents killed by criminals, creating an urge to battle the criminal element. Bruce sees a chance to direct the anger and rage that Dick feels in a way that he himself cannot, thus creating a father/son bond and understanding between the two. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, DC Comics portrayed Batman and Robin as a team, deeming them the "Dynamic Duo", rarely publishing a Batman story without his sidekick; stories entirely devoted to Robin appeared in Star-Spangled Comics from 1947 through 1952 Teen Titans Dick Grayson in his original Nightwing costume. From Tales of the Teen Titans #59 (November 1985). 1964's The Brave and The Bold '' #54 introduces a junior version of the Justice League of America an all-star superhero team of which Batman was a part. This team is led by the modern-day Robin, residing on Earth-One, and was joined by two other teenage sidekicks, Aqualad (sidekick of Aquaman) and Kid Flash (sidekick of The Flash), to stop the menace of Mr. Twister. Later, the three sidekicks join forces with Speedy and Wonder Girl in order to free their mentors in the JLA from mind-controlled thrall. They decide to become a real team: the Teen Titans. By virtue of the tactical skills gleaned from Batman, Robin is swiftly recognized as leader before the Titans disband some years later. In 1969, still in the Pre-Crisis continuity, writer Dennis O'Neil and artist Neal Adams return Batman to his darker roots. One part of this effort is writing Robin out of the series by sending Dick Grayson to Hudson University and into a separate strip in the back of ''Detective Comics. The by-now Teen Wonder appears only sporadically in Batman stories of the 1970s as well as a short lived revival of The Teen Titans. In 1980, Grayson once again takes up the role of leader of the Teen Titans, now featured in the monthly series The New Teen Titans '', which became one of DC Comics' most beloved series of the era. Nightwing In pre-''Crisis On Infinite Earths continuity, the maturing Dick Grayson grows weary of his role as Batman's young sidekick. He renames himself Nightwing , recalling his adventure in the Kryptonian city of Kandor, where he and Batman meet the local hero of the same name. In the "Prodigal" story arc, Bruce Wayne, still recovering from his broken back, asks a reluctant Dick to substitute for him as Batman for a time. Miniseries and ongoing In Nightwing: Alfred's Return #1 (1995), Grayson travels to England to find Alfred, who resigns from Bruce Wayne's service following the events of KnightSaga. Before returning to Gotham City together, they prevent an attempted coup d'etat against the British government that involves destroying the Channel Tunnel under the English Tunnel. Later on, with the Nightwing miniseries (September to December 1995, written by Dennis O'Neil with Greg Land as artist), Dick briefly considers retiring from being Nightwing forever before family papers uncovered by Alfred reveal a possible link between the murder of the Flying Graysons and the Crown Prince of Kravia. Journeying to Kravia, Nightwing helps to topple the murderous Kravian leader and prevent an ethnic cleansing, while learning his parents' true connection to the Prince. In 1996, following the success of the miniseries, DC Comics launched a monthly solo series featuring Nightwing (written by Chuck Dixon, with art by Scott McDaniels), in which he patrols Gotham City's neighboring municipality of Bludhaven. During the battle of Metropolis, Grayson suffers a near-fatal injury from Alexander Luthor Jr when he shields Wayne from Luthor's attack.Originally, the editors at DC intended to have Grayson killed in Infinite Crisis as Newsarama revealed from the DC Panel at WizardWorld Philadelphia: During the "Batman: R.I.P" storyline, Nightwing is ambushed by the International Club of Villains. He is later seen being held in Arkham Asylum, where one of the surgeons, in reality also the civilian identity of ICoV member Le Bossu, arranged for Nightwing to be admitted under the name of Pierrot Lunaire (Another ICoV member) and be kept both heavily drugged and regularly beaten by staff to subdue him. Scheduled for an experimental Lobotomy by Le Bossu himself, he manages to free himself and come to Batman's aid for the finale of the story arc. ''Batman: Reborn'' Following the events of Batman's apparent death during the Final Crisis, Nightwing has closed down shop in New York so as to return to Gotham, where after the events of "Battle for the cowl", he assumes the identity of Batman, with Damien, Bruce Wayne's biological son, as the new Robin.[ The new team of Batman and Robin is the focus of Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's Batman & Robin series. IGN Comics has done various interviews on the Batman and Robin team up. They have said that the dynamic between Dick's Batman and Damian's Robin will be reversed from the usual Batman/Robin relationship: Batman will be lighter, while Robin will be darker. However, Dick's experience as the Dark Knight would harden his personality as his mentor. Nightwing again Dick returned as Nightwing following the Flashpoint events, leaving his mentor as Gotham's Dark Knight once more. After the relaunch, Dick along with all other members of the Batfamily are a few years younger. Dick, despite being 21, as opposed to his mid-late twenties, is drawn a bit shorter than in his pre-relaunch frame. This is likely due to adding believability to his acrobat past. According to various interviews it is stated that Dick was adopted at 16, as opposed to 12. This is due to the DCNU's timeline existing for 5 years. In his civilian identity he is attacked by an assassin named Saiko who insists that he's the fiercest killer in Gotham. Dick inherits the deed to the circus from a dying C.C. Haly and begins a relationship with his childhood friend acrobat Raya Vestri. Saiko tortures Haly for information on Nightwing's secret identity, and the old man dies in Dick's arms after telling him the circus holds a terrible secret. Investigating leads, he tracks down a supervillain named Feedback who used to be a childhood friend but doesn't learn anything.Batgirl visits and they team up to take down a shape-shifter named Spinebender. Following Haly's clues, he finds a mysterious Book of Names in the circus that holds his on the last page.[He's forced to fight a rhyming demon named Acheron when his clown Jimmy Clark is attacked by an ex-fiancee using black magic.Tracking down more leads, he fights a super-villain known as Shox for information. The circus announces they will be doing a memorial show on the anniversary of the night Dick's parents were murdered, and Saiko attacks by detonating a massive explosion. It's revealed that the circus has been training assassins for years, and Saiko was a childhood friend using Raya as an accomplice. Grayson had been selected to become a new Talon for the Court of Owls, but when Batman adopted him Saiko took his place. The killer plummets to his death, and Raya turns herself in. Returning to the Batcave, Bruce reveals to Dick that the current Talon is his great-grandfather William Cob Nightwing receives Alfred's message, which conveys the forty people the Court of Owls targeted for assassination. He goes to save Mayor Sebastian Hady and comes face-to-face with a Talon. Using lethal force on the Talon, Nightwing stabs him across the eye with his stick, as the Talon is already dead and Nightwing's stick is slowing his healing factor down. However, William Cobb, having been revived by another Talon, attacks Nightwing and stabs him in the chest. However Dick tricks Cobb into leading them to Gotham's train tunnels, where he is able to freeze him with a liquid nitrogen tube